This Week’s State

Our visit this week was to South Carolina. We wanted to celebrate the birthdays of John’s sister Chris and husband Steve. We were planning on a long day of travel punctuated by lunch in their town, but they made it easy by offering to meet us halfway. Our arrival was within 15 minutes of each other. Requesting a quiet table, we settled in the back of Olive Garden and talked non-stop for two and a half hours. If there had been anything scintillating to relate, I wouldn’t write about it publicly. Don’t worry; you didn’t miss anything. We were interested in hearing about their latest trip, the things going on in their church, and family news. I meant to tell them that SC had decorated its interstates in pine trees and dogwoods, whereas Tennessee had redbud trees.

041017 Chris John Steve.jpg — Chris, John, and Steve

A Meeting of Minds

Our last stop on the college roommate tour was to see Carolyn and Jim. The last time we saw them was in a larger group. This time there were only four of us to chat. No matter what subject came up, we seemed to view it from the same angle. That’s amazing to me, since we lived in different areas of the country and didn’t see each other for decades.

040417 Carolyn.JPG — Roommate, sophomore year

That is not to say it wasn’t exciting. Carolyn is a twin, and their triplet grandchildren were there with a guest for spring break. I’ve never been around so many multiples. As we drove into the farm, we saw the pre-teens in the pasture with three horses. A bit later the two girls were throwing a football The four had lunch quietly in the kitchen as we ate outside on the porch. Later it was fun watching them climb into hammocks high off the ground. I was impressed with their good manners and respect for our conversation.

040417 Grandkids in hammocks.JPG — There are four bodies in and among the hammocks. This was taken from the front porch.

I asked how Carolyn and Jim found the farm, and she said her grandfather bought it over a hundred years ago. I noticed an angel on a gatepost, and she said, “You must have missed seeing the large angel statues in the family graveyard. I took special note of them on the way out.

Carolyn showed me their wedding album, which I was thrilled to see. I think theirs was the only non-family wedding I was in as a bridesmaid. They married two years ahead of us. Carolyn disappeared into the house for a little while and served us big bowls of homemade chicken salad –just as tasty as it was beautiful. You know you are in the presence of a fantastic cook when she says, “It was just….” Yes, of course. They had a big family of boys and now a passel of grandchildren. She is probably the most experienced cook I know.

Jim is as involved in church work as John ever was. I don’t know all that he does, but he takes care of finances, produces the bulletin, and took a phone call about grounds maintenance while we were there. I enjoyed hearing his praise of a Baptist preacher who has coordinated charity work in the community. The man has a database that other ministers plug into showing names, amounts of money involved, and what was given to people.

The little toy camera was determined not to miss out on the action. Carolyn groaned, that being the classic reaction to the appearance of a camera. She followed it with a brilliant remark. She said, “I might not like my picture today, but in three years, I’ll love it.” I have the feeling I’m going to quote that many times. One of the triplets took a photo of the four of us.

040417 John Anne Jim Carolyn.JPG — John, Anne, Jim, and Carolyn

We had to head home, because John was slated to do the chanting for our mid-week service. We traveled at a lovely time of day. Tennessee’s interstate highways were all lined with miss-named redbud trees. The sun made the lavender blooms glow against a dark green background of evergreen trees.

Historic Friends

We were with friends who have known each other for 68 years. I realized they have known me longer than anyone else on earth, aside from my brother. That is history! There are others who fit that description, and we wished they could have been there. We sat in Linda’s living room and let the memories pour out. After an hour, I thought I was on overload. How could I remember all the things we talked about? I couldn’t, but I can share a story or so.

040217 Linda Becky.jpg

We were last together in 2012. Since then, Linda went to the brink of death and back, and that’s what I wanted to know about. The president of our (public) high school class sent out a call for prayer for her. That’s part of having grown up in the South, something I took for granted until I moved north. This group will talk openly about faith. We got reports about her having an aneurysm in the brain and surviving the surgery. She didn’t mind talking about it and described how she woke up feeling odd. It was only two months after the death of her husband. Her children rallied around to care for her until she was back on her feet. She remembers only sketchy things about those first days. She knew the surgeon was going to try to repair things in the middle of her brain and was told many people don’t survive the surgery. If they live through it, there could be great damage. Linda says her inherited stubbornness made her determined to be a survivor. She came through that well, only to find out there were two more aneurysms nearer the skull that were subsequently operated on. Becky said she went to the hospital during the first round, and Linda remembered seeing her there. If I hadn’t been told of this near catastrophe, I would never had guessed it by seeing her now.

I wrote recently about the Arp Consolidated school near my hometown, and I found that Becky had a connection to it, as well. Back in the 60’s she was assigned to teach there for a couple of years. She had followed in her parents’ footsteps. Her mother was the home bound teacher, going to children’s homes when they couldn’t go to school. There were children needing long-term help, as well as those with a broken leg or temporary impairment. Her dad was the principal of one of the schools in the area.

Becky mentioned that her grandfather had been a circuit rider – a Methodist minister who rode about an area having church services in places where there was no organized church. She wondered aloud if he had ridden a horse. We all agreed he must have. In the recent past, she was invited to speak at a church where her granddad had served. No one was old enough to remember him, but it was a very special occasion for her.

I didn’t know Linda and husband William had an antique business for years. They had a booth, and later more than one, in an antique mall. We were glad to have an expert with us as we walked through this shop. Her house is full of beautiful antiques, lots of clocks, and untold numbers of old books that William wanted to own. Linda said they first learned the value of things from books and experience, since that was before the Google age. I thought the experience part was amusing. Linda said if a group of people came in and one snatched up a piece before the others could see it, she knew for certain that it was valuable.

040217 Linda Becky John antique shop restaurant.jpg — Restaurant inside an antique store

I was grateful most of my stories seemed to end up where I wanted them to. There was a bathroom incident that shook me up for a few seconds. Becky found a restaurant for us that was in the middle of an antique shop. The door to the ladies’ restroom was a front door with an oval insert of glass. I locked the door and thought nothing more of it until I was half undressed on the inside. Eek! Can people see me? I waved a hand to make sure it was a mirror and not clear glass. This probably would not have occurred to me if I didn’t have recurring nightmares about bathrooms that are not very private. You are privy to my secret. I expect to see this one again in a dream someday (or night).

Becky noticed signs for coconut cake, denoting it was something special there. Before we ordered lunch, she told the waitress we’d share one piece for dessert. From experience, I knew to cover my clean knife with my hand as my lunch plate was removed. The cake was divvied up, and we dug in.

040217 Coconut cake.jpg

The afternoon ended too soon. If we had stayed longer though, I feel precious memories would have been shooting into the air for lack of storage space.

Roommates Revisited

For various reasons, I planned to see all but one of my college roommates in a space of seven days. The first was Minna Gwyn in our home, and the next was Bonnie in her home in Nashville. I’m kicking myself for not getting the obligatory photo of Bonnie, but just imagine a most gracious Southern lady with a marvelous sense of fun. That would be your best image of her. She is one you feel instantly at ease with. If she knows you, and you’re still alive, she will say only good things about you. Let’s cut to the dirt. Bonnie had read that John told a funny story to Minna about a very poor music history teacher. She wanted to know, was that Mr. S.? It was. Bonnie probably ran into him more often than the rest of us, so that’s where we began our visit. I had Googled his name and found that he was ten years older than John and that he died at age 57, survived only by his mother. We don’t remember how long he stayed at our college, but mercifully it wasn’t long. Bonnie’s word for him was incompetent. That’s the most vicious word she would say against him.

We caught up on pleasant news of others, during which I discovered my serious conversational flaw. I let things drop, lacking a clincher sentence. I began telling about a fellow from my home town, but I never made the final statement that he ended up performing with someone we all admired at college. It was like telling a joke without the punch line. I never could tell a joke, and now it has spread to general conversation. If that isn’t cured now, it will only get worse. Any suggestions? Duct tape is the first option.

April Fool??

With John away, I didn’t expect to see anyone or anything out of the ordinary. There would be no need to be alert, watching out for April Fool pranks. Should I blame Mother Nature for what I saw today?

040117 April Fool snake on the road.jpg

A little dead snake was in my path as I returned from walking to the stop sign. It was not there yesterday. Surely it’s too early for snakes! We’ve had temperatures only a few degrees above freezing in the last week. It couldn’t have been put there to scare me. Anyone who knows me, is aware that I don’t dread snakes. We won’t discuss spiders here. Twins, only one of whom might see this, once planted a dead spider from the train park in the trunk of my car. We are once again on speaking terms.

I took a photo of the snake, with my foot for a size comparison, and slithered on home. No other surprises have been forthcoming.

They Came for Coffee

They came for coffee and left, having had dark colored water. As they were pulling out of our drive, I asked John if the coffee had been weak. It had. John normally makes the coffee, but he was enjoying the conversation so much that I didn’t interrupt. I used coffee that was new to me, a medium roast from Aldi’s. Our guest said he had been in the Navy and liked his coffee black. His wife added her agreement. That should have been a red flag to double the amount I thought proper. I wanted to run after their car and shout that we’d make a better brew if they would come back.

My freshman roommate from college came to visit her daughter who had moved near Asheville. We lost touch ages ago, so I was thrilled she agreed to come to our house for coffee. We last saw her 53 years ago at graduation. Minna Gwyn and Jerry married a few months before we did, but I didn’t really know him. What a revelation it turned out to be!

As we walked in our house, Minna said to Jerry and me, “Arp meet Ripley. Ripley meet Arp.”

What? I grew up in Ripley, a small town that never made it to important maps. Minna implied Jerry grew up in Arp. As in so many agricultural areas, outlying communities had names but no town. Arp was the first settlement west of Ripley.

I exclaimed, “You went right by my house every time you went to town!”

Jerry was aware of it and knew which house was mine. I was oblivious to all kinds of things when I was young, but how could I have missed him? He was one class ahead of me. There were a number of small schools in our county feeding into two high schools, so I wouldn’t have known him until I was in 9^th grade. Still! I should have remembered him! They quickly let me off the hook, explaining that he moved to Memphis after he finished 8^th grade.

I put my foot in it when I asked how they met each other. “At Rhodes College,” they answered.

Yep, the four of us were graduates of the same college (university for non-Americans). Why had I missed Jerry there, too? The answer was that he went through in three and a half years, and he was a biology major. Biology and music didn’t cross paths. Minna met Jerry when they had a German class together. [She remembers you, Gerhard.] I was delighted to know this person who had been nearby but totally out of my sight.

The other surprising revelation was what Minna and I did after college. We both got degrees in music, but her instrument was organ, and mine was piano. All these years I imagined her being an organist in some big, impressive church. No, by choice she taught private piano lessons and subbed on big, impressive pipe organs. I would rather have held a spider than teach piano lessons, and I was the organist for our church (without an impressive organ) for 25 years. How I could have used her training!

We might have cut straight to the laughter if we hadn’t caught up with personal history first. It’s not a requirement, but if you come to visit me after 50 years, please send ahead a five-line biography and abbreviated family tree.

I don’t dare repeat the story that caused Minna Gwyn to laugh aloud. We had an inept teacher in the music department who had no grasp of the music history he was trying to teach. When John finished his story, I’d say her mirth was vindication for what she had endured.

Jerry attended the school at Arp where his mother was a teacher. I had to tell him how I wanted to go to that school. Our family drove past it on a hot summer day, and I told my parents that’s where I wanted to be when school started in August. Why? I was reading the name from the front of the building, Arp Consolidated. I don’t know whether to blame it on bad eyesight or poor reading skills, but I read it as Air Conditioned.

I laughed most at Jerry’s story of the outhouse when he was about five years old. He and his cousin Tommy ran and jumped over the hole that was left after the outhouse was moved. For those not old enough to know, you move the structure when the deep hole below is full. Jerry made it. Tommy didn’t. Not to worry – I do remember Tommy from high school. The stench was gone by then.

032917 Jerry John Minna.jpg

Stink Bug

Something was crawling up my leg as I washed my hands in the bathroom. I expected to see an Asian lady beetle, but it was a stink bug. Now a stink bug in this house could also be known as a Lise-freaker. There was ONE in the house last Thanksgiving, and it found her. You can’t blame anyone who shrieks when confronted with a flying insect, but I’m used to scooping stink bugs into my hand and throwing them outside. This one was friskier than most. It crawled out of my loosely closed fist and flew away. Obviously, I didn’t want to clamp down on it and cause it to stink. We were hurrying to go to early service, so I told myself I’d find it later.

Later happened to be five minutes later IN THE SHOWER. It crawled on my foot. The choice was to deal with it quietly or leap through the curtain like an screech-amplified lawn sprinkler. I know which Lise would have chosen. I just danced around the subject and got the water to pin it to the drain. It’s the first time I’ve ever showered while keeping my eyes totally on my feet. The bug seemed to be drowned. I used a paper cup to pick it up, and it stuck to the inside of the cup. Little did I know, it was in suspended animation.

After church and lunch at Cheddar’s, I headed to the bathroom with the toy camera. 032617 Stink bug One tap of the cup, and the bug landed upside down on the counter. To my shock, it moved its legs. I told it to pose and flipped it over, having nail clippers there for size comparison. The photo session wasn’t long, and soon the bug was tossed onto the deck where it blended in with hulls of sunflower seeds from the bird feeder.

The story is true, but do you really trust a person whose cockeyed glasses take a nap on the nightstand like this?

032617 Cockeyed glasses took a nap.jpg

“I Lost Two Teeth!”

Don’t worry. The title quote is not mine. If I had lost two teeth, my bank account would be hurting more than my mouth.

We walk by sun time, not by the clock, trying to be out at dawn and home before the sun heats up. At this time of year, we often see neighbor Bob driving Logan (6) to the bus stop. We caught up to them as Bob parked at the stop sign. Logan was in the back of the car, and as Bob rolled the window down, the boy’s head went down with it. He was teasing by hiding from us. His great news overcame the teasing mode as he announced, “I lost two teeth!’

“May I take a picture?” I asked.

“No,” replied Logan gently as he ducked his head. His dad told him to pose for me, which he did graciously. With children you often have one shot, and that’s all you’re going to get. Bob and Logan passed on this one, so the photo moment was declared a success.

032417 Logan lost two teeth.JPG

Death by Dust Bunny

I witnessed a death caused by dust. In truth, I had a hand in it.

Since we moved to the mountains of North Carolina, we have had seasonal infestations of bugs that look like ladybugs. Most people know that real ladybugs are prized in the garden, but our intruders are not. In the house, mostly in our bedroom, we have Asian lady beetles. The photo came from PestSupply on the internet. [Does that name strike you odd, as it did me? Who wants a supply of pests?] It seems our house is a target, since these beetles attack light-colored houses. Ours is tan.

032217 Asian lady beetle from Pest Supply.jpg

I have documented the dusting in this house, mainly because it doesn’t happen often and is noteworthy when it does. It’s true that one can be contaminated by walking through here, which is what happened to the unfortunate beetle. I spotted it on the bathroom floor, but then it was spotted to begin with. Following the normal procedure, I picked it up, intending to drown it in the toilet. That’s when I noticed its rear leg was caught in a dust bunny. It turned itself over in my hand and started crawling, dragging its baggage behind it. The little toy camera wanted to record this event, so I put the beetle on the counter. There has to be a way to set the camera for close-ups, but I couldn’t find it quickly. If I were put on trial, this fuzzy photo would be Exhibit A.

032217 Asian lady beetle dragging dust bunny.jpg — Lady beetle dragging a dust bunny

After taking a dozen poor shots, I carried the bug to the toilet for a quick, watery death. Let this be a warning to all you lady beetles. 99% of you will not get a five-minute reprieve due to a dust bunny trap.

Laundry?

John asked a simple question over breakfast, “Do you need laundry done?”

You have it right – he does the laundry, and I am grateful. It wasn’t always his job. When we had three children at home and I was the stay-at-home mom, I did whites six times and colors two times a week. That is not to say that we were squeaky clean. Just walking through our undusted house could contaminate you. He volunteered to do the wash when he had his office next to the laundry room, and I was working outside the home. That slid into the era of necessity when I was recovering from having total knee replacements. The “look Ma, no hands!” could not be applied to laundry baskets on stairs. Well, it could, but there would have been bodily harm to someone. We moved to a one-floor-fits-all house in the mountains, and he continued his clean act. In return, I say thank you every time I find clean clothes laid on the bed, always folded or on hangers. It is truly a blessing. He’s a keeper.

John’s morning query made me wonder what drives other people’s laundry. There are the questions of who does it? and what is the trigger? Most people I know, including Facebook and WordPress friends, have some cleaning routine, otherwise I would have smelled you long ago. Do you wash because the laundromat is empty at a particular time? Perhaps you know you have to do this chore when you retrieve your socks from the floor and wear them ten days in a row.

I answered John’s question by saying I would look in the drawer and see how many pairs of jeans I had left. I asked, “Why are you asking? You have been washing exactly when I needed clean clothes. What has changed?”

He replied, “I threw away some underwear and opened a new package.”

Ah! The necessity marker had changed!